Catholic Church Lets Copernicus Out of Hell!!!!!

Copernicus was so afraid of the catholic church that he waited until he was on his death bed to proclaim that the earth as was believed by the catholic church was not the center of the universe and that it was the sun.

The best answer to these sorts of claims is “Documentation please?” An even better answer, if you have the time and inclination, is to provide the answer yourself, which I helpfully did since I had the time and inclination. If you want it yourself, go here.
My reader, daunted by actual fact, replied “Ok, I am not going to debate history with you” and then proceeded to change the subject to “Has any Catholic anywhere ever done bad things? Ah HA!!!!”

Fair enough. When you are shown to not have the slightest idea what you are talking about it’s best to play to your strengths.

However, a few days later, this particular troll returned, renewed and invigorated by this promising story:

This what I had stated before about Copernicus !!! You are so blind ! Yea keep donating to a group of enablers and abusers !!

Actually, no. Nothing has changed. However, the article (and some of the headlines from spinoff syndications of the article) is calculated to make inattentive slaves of our anti-Catholic culture think that it supports the “Church persecuted Copernicus” myth. Take for instance this headline on the same story from CBS:

The opening of the story is calculated to make inattentive readers like my troll assume exactly the “Church persecuting great scientists” narrative they are pre-disposed to regurgitate. Copernicus was buried in an unmarked grave. But they dug him up and figured out from his DNA and a facial reconstruction that this was the guy. So they reburied him with honors.

What does my reader think? Boy, that Catholic Church. Finally admitting the earth goes around the sun and repenting their bitter persecution of this Giant of Science. Unmarked grave! What ignominy! Why I read in Angels and Demonsthat he was murdered by the Church! They have no shame, do they?
Here’s the thing. Copernicus died of natural causes. He wasn’t murdered. He was also a Catholic priest in good standing. That’s why it was relatively easy to find his remains. Because, you see, the investigators did not have to pick through a six century old pile of ashes from some ancient heretic burning. They didn’t have to search all over Poland and comb graveyards reserved for the ignominious end of the medieval heretic.

All they had to do was poke around under the floor of Fromberg Cathedral until they found his grave.

Now, a smart reporter would note that getting buried under a cathedral is not exactly regarded as a sign of heresy or dishonor in medieval Poland. But an MSM reporter just regurgitates a Dan Brownian meme without thinking about it too much. And readers like my troll take the bait. After that, all you have to do is note that Copernicus’ theory was published at the end of his life and it’s suddenly an Established Historical Fact that the only reason for this must be due to the Evil Persecuting Catholic Church.

But the thing is, the AP story itself (finally) gets around to making it clear that Dan Brown Kool-Aid drinkers really don’t know what they are talking about. However, you have to scroll down to nearly the bottom of the article to get it. The truth is much more, well, boring:

Copernicus’ burial in an anonymous grave in the 16th century was not linked to suspicions of heresy. When he died, his ideas were just starting to be discussed by a small group of European astronomers, astrologers and mathematicians, and the church was not yet forcefully condemning the heliocentric world view as heresy, according to Jack Repcheck, author of “Copernicus’ Secret: How the Scientific Revolution Began.”

The full attack on those ideas came decades later when the Vatican was waging a massive defense against Martin Luther’s Reformation.

“There is no indication that Copernicus was worried about being declared a heretic and being kicked out of the church for his astronomical views,” Repcheck said.

“Why was he just buried along with everyone else, like every other canon in Frombork? Because at the time of his death he was just any other canon in Frombork. He was not the iconic hero that he has become.”

As to the actual history of his relationship with the Church regarding his heliocentric theory, he remains a frustrating hope for the Noble Scientist vs. Evil Religion Crowd. Here’s the Catholic Encyclopedia with actual, you know, facts and stuff:

His reputation was such that as early as 1514 the Lateran Council, convoked by Leo X, asked through Bishop Paul of Fossombrone, for his opinion on the reform of the ecclesiastical calendar. His answer was, that the length of the year and of the months and the motions of the sun and moon were not yet sufficiently known to attempt a reform. The incident, however, spurred him on as he himself writes to Paul III, to make more accurate observations; and these actually served, seventy years later, as a basis for the working out of the Gregorian calendar.

Twenty-five years after his university career, he had finished his great work, at least in his own mind, but hesitated a long time, whether to publish it or to imitate the Pythagoreans, who transmitted the mysteries of their philosophy only orally to their own disciples for fear of exposing them to the contempt of the multitude. His friends who had become interested in the new theory prevailed on him to write at least an abstract for them, manuscript copies of which have been discovered in Vienna (1873) and Stockholm (1878). In this commentary Copernicus stated his theory in the form of seven axioms, reserving the mathematical part for the Principal work. This was in 1531, or twelve years before his death. From this on the doctrine of the heliocentric system began to spread. In 1533 Albert Widmanstadt lectured before Pope Clement VII on the Copernican solar system. His reward consisted in a Greek codex which is preserved in the State library of Munich. Three years later Copernicus was urged by Cardinal Schonberg, then Archbishop of Capua, in a letter, dated at Rome, 1 November, 1536, to publish his discovery, or at least to have a copy made at the cardinal’s expense. But all the urging of friends was in vain, until a younger man was providentially sent to his side.

It was George Joachim Rheticus who quitted his chair of mathematics in Wittenberg in order to spend two years at the feet of the new master (1539-41). Hardly ten weeks after his arrival in Frauenburg he sent a “First Narration” of the new solar system to his scientific friend Schöner in Nuremberg, in the form of a letter of sixty-six pages, which was soon after printed in Danzig (1540) and Basle (1541). Rheticus next obtained for publication the manuscript of a preliminary chapter of the great work on plane and spherical trigonometry. Finally Copernicus, feeling the weight of his sixty-eight years, yielded, as he writes to *****Paul III*****, to the entreaties of Cardinal Schonberg, of Bishop Giese of Culm, and of other learned men to surrender his manuscripts for publication. Bishop Giese charged Rheticus, as the ablest disciple of the great master, with the task of editing the work. The intention of the latter was to take the manuscript to Wittenberg and have it published at the university but owing to the hostility prevailing there(*) against the Copernican system, only the chapter on trigonometry was printed (1542). The two copies of the “First Narration” and of the treatise on trigonometry, which Rheticus presented to his friend Dr. Gasser, then practising medicine in Feldkirch, may be seen in the Vatican Library (Palat. IV, 585) Rheticus then turned to Schöner in Nuremberg, who, together with Osiander, accepted the charge and engaged the printing-house of Petreius in the same city. In the meanwhile Rheticus tried to resume his chair in Wittenberg, but on account of his Copernican views had to resign (1542) and turned to Leipzig (1543). He was thus prevented from giving his personal attention to the edition, nor was the author himself able to superintend it. Copernicus became paralyzed on the right side and weakened in memory and mind many days before his death. The first copy of the “Six Books on the Revolutions of the Celestial Orbits” was handed to him the very day he died. Fortunately for him, he could not see what Osiander had done. This reformer, knowing the attitude of Luther and Melanchthon against the heliocentric system, introduced the word “Hypothesis” on the title page, and without adding his own name, replaced the preface of Copernicus by another strongly contrasting in spirit with that of Copernicus. The preface of Osiander warns the reader not to expect anything certain from astronomy, nor to accept its hypothesis as true, ne stultior ab hac disciplinâ discedat, quam accesserit. The dedication to Pope Paul III was, however, retained, and the text of the work remained intact, as was ascertained later when access was had to the original manuscript, now in the family library of the Counts Nostitz in Prague.

Opposition was first raised against the Copernican system by Protestant theologians for Biblical reasons and strange to say it has continued, at least sporadically, to our own days. A list of many of their Pamphlets is enumerated by Beckmann. On the Catholic side opposition only commenced seventy-three years later, when it was occasioned by Galileo.(**) On 5 March, 1616, the work of Copernicus was forbidden by the Congregation of the Index “until corrected”, and in 1620 these corrections were indicated. Nine sentences, by which the heliocentric system was represented as certain, had to be either omitted or changed. This done, the reading of the book was allowed. In 1758 the book of Copernicus disappeared from the revised Index of Benedict XIV. New editions were issued in Basle (1566) by Rheticus; in Amsterdam (1617) by Müller of Göttingen, in Warsaw (1854) an edition de luxe with Polish translation and the real preface of Copernicus; and the latest (5th) in Torun (1873) by the Copernicus Society, on the four hundredth anniversary of the author’s birthday, with all the corrections of the text, made by Copernicus, given as foot-notes. A monument by Thorwaldsen was erected to Copernicus in Warsaw (1830), and another by Tieck at Torun (1853). Rheticus, Clavius, and others called Copernicus the second Ptolemy, and his book the second “Almagest.” His genius appears in the fact that he grasped the truth centuries before it could be proved. If he had precursors they are to be compared to those of Columbus. What is most significant in the character of Copernicus is this, that while he did not shrink from demolishing a scientific system consecrated by a thousand years’ universal acceptance, he set his face against the reformers of religion.

(*) Why hostility at Wittenberg? Because it was a Protestant stronghold and heliocentrism seemed to Sola Scriptura Protestants to be contrary to Scripture.
(**) For a brief rundown of what really happened with Galileo, go here.

Bottom line: there was no persecution of Copernicus by the Church. It was Catholics who pushed him to publish despite his quirky enthusiasm for Pythagorean secrecy.

By the way, if the Church is just now getting around to rehabilitating Copernicus, how come the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia is smiling on him so much?

Comments

Hi
I’m studying Copernicus and Galileo. I’ve reviewed various primary and secondary sources including the original Vatican docs (I’m learning Latin) and catholic.com and a range of wikis and academic papers and books. The various Catholic versions of events are very selective, I find. There really is no away around the bare facts, which are that the Vatican vigorously resisted thinking contrary to scripture and Aristotle and Aquinas. Most of the statements I find on some Catholic sites suggesting that the Vatican was supportive of science are misleading. It’s true that Protestant theologians were even more resistant. However the states of northern Europe did not permit Protestant church influence to trump state power (unlike in the south), which permitted some great thinkers to operate with latitude and reduced fear of torture and death. The Vatican really did burn thinkers at the stake for being inconvenient.

Posted by str on Friday, Aug 17, 2012 2:59 AM (EDT):

“He knew his work would disagree with the currently accepted understanding of scripture and would be censured.”

Well, it was censured. By his academic colleagues, the scientists of his day. It was also censured by great ignoramuses like Dr. Martin Luther.

It was not censured by the Catholic Church until decades later, during the controversy about Galileo. And even that was very much a temporary thing.

Copernicus’ view did not conform to the science of his day. Nor was his work very scientific in approach and very good in its result.

Posted by Joe Bundas on Thursday, Aug 16, 2012 8:39 PM (EDT):

Perhaps there will be babblers who claim to be judges of astronomy although completely ignorant of the subject and, badly distorting some passage of Scripture to their purpose, will dare to find fault with my undertaking and censure it. This is in the preface written by Copernicus. He knew his work would disagree with the currently accepted understanding of scripture and would be censured.

Posted by Joe Bundas on Thursday, Aug 16, 2012 8:30 PM (EDT):

I find it interesting that you may edit my response. I am guessing that when the Catholic Church made changes in Copernicus’ work it was only doing so for “clarity and length” not because they disagreed with him. Some things never change.

Posted by John Miller on Thursday, Dec 16, 2010 9:00 PM (EDT):

This is a documentary that I made about an “Afterlife Lawyer” who claims he argues your case about going to Hell. http://vimeo.com/17318208

Posted by Will on Saturday, Nov 13, 2010 11:38 AM (EDT):

Zoe, since when do “the Bishops” have legal or judicial authority in Indonesia, which is, as you apparently have not noticed a Moslem country? In fact, the most populous Moslem country.

Posted by str on Saturday, Sep 11, 2010 8:37 AM (EDT):

Atheist,

if you are looking for an “unbiased” source, I am afraif you find any on anything.

Nothing in this world is unbiased. But the worst bias is the one that doesn’t recognise itself.

Still, the CathEn was a scholarly work (with a viewpoint, as everyone else) for its time. Modern historical scholarship rather agrees with what Mark wrote above and not with the nonsense he criticizes.

Posted by Yah I'm an atheist on Friday, Sep 10, 2010 9:54 PM (EDT):

Not sure that the catholic encyclopedia counts as an unbiased source. Some primary research or a less- biased source with secondary or tertiary research would be preferable.

Posted by Zoe Brain on Tuesday, Jun 15, 2010 10:18 PM (EDT):

The problem the Catholic Church faced was that their ideological enemies possessed most of the printing presses. So much of what is commonly believed as historical fact from the period is just partisan propaganda.
Having said that….
The Church at the moment is in danger of having egg on its face over another issue. A biological one. Recent speeches by His Holiness to the Curia and Vatican Diplomatic Corps have been most unfortunate. In order to show that Homosexual conduct is disordered, it was necessary to reason that that this was because it blurred the line between the sexes, and was thus against Natural Law. To grant them legal rights is an attack on the Human Ecology that threatens Man’s destruction.
One problem: 1 in 60 people are technically Intersexed, and perhaps 1 in 1000 severely so. 1 in 500 apparent men have 47,XXY chromosomes rather than the usual 46,XY variety. The Bishops in Indonesia have just proclaimed that one such man is female, thus guilty of fraud and subject to 7 years jail time if he pretends to be male, on the basis of his “extra X chromosome”. The American Catholic Bishops have abandoned their position of neutrality on the subject of employment rights for gays, since the latest version includes rights for the Intersexed and Transsexual as well. The reason given is that to give the Intersexed equal rights would violate others rights of privacy and association - the same rationale as was used by others, not Catholics, to justify segregation.

Posted by cdswike on Wednesday, Jun 9, 2010 8:17 PM (EDT):

Thank you Mark for providing a column based on truth and not the usual “atheistic enlightenment” thought.

After attending a summer session in college at Jagellonian University, you can see how well perserved a catholic country like Poland preserved his items. The catholic people are very proud of him and love their pope as well! Dan Brown’s propaganda doesn’t even stick.

Posted by str on Wednesday, Jun 9, 2010 5:53 AM (EDT):

F,

thanks for summing up that this is solely about hating the Catholic Church, not about anything substantial.

Or was that irony?

Posted by F on Wednesday, Jun 9, 2010 4:11 AM (EDT):

He was a hero like others of his time for defying the intolerant church at the risk of his life, all praise. Some should take note.

Posted by Martin Morgan on Tuesday, Jun 8, 2010 7:40 PM (EDT):

“It was bad luck for the Catholic Church that he ended up in her hands.”

Impressive.

Posted by str on Tuesday, Jun 8, 2010 4:36 PM (EDT):

PS. There were real scientists around 1600, e.g. Galileo, Johann Kepler, Tycho Brahe and many many more.

Bruno was not one of them!

Posted by str on Tuesday, Jun 8, 2010 4:35 PM (EDT):

Martin,

did I say that? NO!!!

But just because Bruno was burned, doesn’t make him a great person or a great scientist or a scientist at all. If he’s a scientist than so are modern-day quacks like Däniken. This would also settle the debate on “Creation Science”.

Bruno was a pantheist philosopher, a fake astrologer and a self-important busy body who got kicked out of any major place he went. It was bad luck for the Catholic Church that he ended up in her hands.

So let me spell it out for you again: I wouldn’t want to burn him but neither does his case trouble me in the least.

Posted by Martin Morgan on Tuesday, Jun 8, 2010 1:05 PM (EDT):

“the bottom of the barel in quackery”

Nothing wrong with burning a quack to death then? That’s the spirit!

And yes, Bruno and Vanini were scientists, albeit calling anyone in the 17th century a “scientist” is an anachronism. Newton himself wrote far more on theology than he did on “science” and I’m quite sure he didn’t see a difference. Bruno and Vanini (and plenty of other people) were essential in creating the very definition of what a “scientist” is.

Posted by jeff on Tuesday, Jun 8, 2010 12:02 PM (EDT):

I’m still trying to wrap my head around what the gentleman referred to as Bellarmine’s attempt to control science.

Now, I’m an old guy so I might be a little biased in favor of rigorous thinking, but I wish the gentleman who attacked Robert Bellarmine in this thread would explain:

Exactly what is amateur or wrong about distinguishing between a hypothesis and a demonstrated fact? And I’m absolutely stunned that an educated person in the 21st century would not know the difference.

No sidetracking, no fuming or puffing of the chest. Stick to the basic distinction. Is there or is there not a difference between hypothesis and demonstrated fact? If so, Robert Bellarmine did not deviate from the canons of science, so please quit smearing his name.

Posted by str on Tuesday, Jun 8, 2010 6:46 AM (EDT):

Copernicus’ book was placed on the index because of the fuzz Calileo created.

As for your scientists, Bruno was not a scientist but the bottom of the barel in quackery. Don’t know much about Vanini but nothing I see suggests that he was a scientist either.

Posted by martin morgan on Monday, Jun 7, 2010 8:07 PM (EDT):

Copernicus’ work was placed on the Index in 1664. Why?

As for “name two other scientists”: Ok, I’ll start with two of my favorites. Bruno and Vanini were both burned alive by the Church in Galileo’s lifetime. Vanini also had his tongue pulled out with pincers and cut off first.

Posted by Jim J on Monday, Jun 7, 2010 6:51 PM (EDT):

The most serious objection to Copernicus’s theory was that stellar parallax was a consequence of his theory yet none was observed. It wouldn’t be observed until the 19th century. This is the reason that the church insisted that the Copernican system be treated as hypothesis, not fact. http://www.scientus.org/Copernicus-Stellar-Parallax.html

Posted by Aodhan Hoffman on Monday, Jun 7, 2010 5:53 PM (EDT):

One takeaway I have from this account is that Copernicus did indeed suppress his work believing, quite rightly, that it would open him up for censure. What I think is missed by reading the straight facts, that his peers were clergy, is that nearly all educated men were clergy at the time. The issue wasn’t out of concern for being branded a heretic, but a radical. It was his fellows in astronomy and mathematics from whom he shielded his work, they just happened to be clerical.

We’ve seen similar instances in science up to the modern day, including in geology ( plate tectonics, ice ages, etc ). Thought of as an /academic/ dispute rather than a /clerical/ one, the whole history surrounding Copernicus makes more sense.

Posted by baconboy on Monday, Jun 7, 2010 5:11 PM (EDT):

Actually, there is a recent book that deals with many of these issues and I’d highly recommend it: “Galileo Goes to Jail and other Myths about Science and Religion”, edited by the eminent University of Wisconsin historian of religion and science, Ronald Numbers. There are about 25 different myths that experts in their particular fields take apart and provide careful documentation for. As you can tell from the title, one of the key myths it deals with is that of Galileo.

Posted by Josh S on Monday, Jun 7, 2010 4:50 PM (EDT):

Interesting point about Wittenberg. Protestants are fundamentalists on 1st-century texts (“Geocentrism is in the Bible! Has to be true!”), and Catholics are fundamentalists on medieval texts (“Purgatory is in the canons of a council! Has to be true!”).

Posted by Kevin on Thursday, Jun 3, 2010 1:49 PM (EDT):

Mark, my assessment of the AP article was the same as yours, and it seems to be a pattern with them on matters Catholic: they make an incendiary enthymeme in the headline and/or beginning of the article, the unstated premise being (as you point out) the bigot’s assumption that the Church was against science. It is only many paragraphs later that the exonerating, pesky detail of context provides the AP with plausible deniability. But since bigots are as a rule mentally lazy, I wonder how many of them scrolled all the way down rather than having their hatred sated in the first few paragraphs then bailing for a Richard Dawkins book.

Posted by Johnno on Tuesday, Jun 1, 2010 6:33 AM (EDT):

The condemnation of Galileo is an error. Galileo also very much had himself to blame and his own pride for bringing so much controversy on himself. Also Galileo couldn’t explain how the planets revolved nor what kept them suspended in the air, nor why the vast majority of the stars did not seem to move from the Earth’s perspective, things the geocentric models of the time did, despite that we know they are wrong now. Also given the Protestant Reformation of the time, some statements didn’t help him all that much with concern to interpreting the Bible without the Church’s authority. As well his book that made veiled insults at the Pope by placing the Pope’s arguments against heliocentrism in the character of a fool would also get him in major trouble. I don’t know much about any of the rest, but I feel you’d be best served more closely examining them. I too read College textbooks that still peddle such myths, which just goes to show that scientists ought to stick with science and not comment on things beyond the scope of their discipline, such as history.

Posted by str on Tuesday, Jun 1, 2010 6:32 AM (EDT):

If I will ever write a book on the errors of Navy Pilot, such a book would be the prime item.

You totally fail to distinguish between who actually acted in every circumstances.

1. The Roman Inquisition condemned Galileo.

2. A Norman-French church court condemned Joan of Arc, the Holy See rehabilitated her and later canonised her as a Saint.

3. A Pope condemned the Magna carta (which is not what many make it out to be) in a very specific situation. Pure politics!

4. is again fuzzy wording. It is the Church (and it is the Catholic Church, not Protestantism or the Orthodox) that laid the foundation for the concept of “religious freedom” being thinkable at all, no matter how many of her members actually erring on that count.

5. The excommunication of Elizabeth was maybe stupid (i.e. not thought through) but not in any way morally wrong when one looks at the facts.

6. No instution was more progressive on the race/slavery issue even in the 16th century. When you condemn the church for her behaviour you should (if honest) condemn everyone else a thousand times over.

7. But church leaders did speak out against pogroms quite often (see the First Crusade).

8. Be careful what you wish for or current objectively evil regimes would have to deal with it too (and you might be living in one). But then you would call it “meddling in politics”. The Church has to deal with the real world however.

9. Again, more 19th C Mexico nonense.

You mix politics and theology and imoral actions/unactions with just “stupid” decision, in short crimes with mistakes and mistakes with errors.

Posted by former Navy pilot on Monday, May 31, 2010 9:47 PM (EDT):

If ever I had a chance to write a book, I think it would be on the Top Ten Mistakes of the Catholic Church. In this list would be: Condemnation of Galileo; condemnation of St. Joan of Arc; condemnation of Magna Carta; condemnation of free exercise of religion/education; relaxing English Catholics’ loyalty to Queen Elizabeth; failure to condemn slavery/failure to initiate civil rights struggle based on race; failure to speak out against periodic progroms against the Jews (including massacres of same during the Crusades); willingness to countenance objectively evil regimes so long as its property interests were protected (virtually all of 19th C Mexico). That’s 8; any suggestions for the other 2? Anyone disagree that any of the above are errors? Thanks.

Posted by former Navy pilot on Monday, May 31, 2010 9:35 PM (EDT):

I thank everyone who has taken the time to comment on my comments; I believe they have helped me to deepen my faith through a better understanding of this controversy. Franciscan: please pray for me as I shall for thee.
My larger point is that the whole topic of Copernicus and Galileo (the two can’t be separated) is much too Historically Important to be dealt with flippantly. And yes, the Church has much to be humble about regarding this episode. When Galileo began teaching the heliocentric universe as True Fact, he was on a collision course with the Church because such a Scientific Truth would lead ineluctably to interpreting Joshua phonomenologically, which the Church currently and happily does to no ill effect. However, at the time Lutheran piety and literalism were an important consideration preventing such a biblical approach, which is unfortunate because it harmonizes not only Scientific Truth but with Aquinas and Augustine. There is no doubt that Galileo’s stubbornness led to his condemnation by the Roman Inquisition. While we faithful Catholics can happily scrutinize Galileo’s foibles, the Historical Judgment nevertheless remains: the Roman Inquisition erred.
Big Theological Lesson: Roman Inquisition is not infallible (nor are Church courts—cf. condemnation as heretic of St. Joan of Arc by a properly constituted Church tribunal). Practical lesson: the Church, acting as it does through fallible humans, at time errs. These errors are to be regretted, and hopefully not to be repeated.
But before that happens, they must be recognized as errors and reviewed for Where We Went Wrong. In other words, let’s debrief it and learn from this. Nothing wrong with that, is there?

Posted by Anastasia on Monday, May 31, 2010 4:26 PM (EDT):

Poor Josh! The most cursory reading of real historians (and not just Catholic ones) shows that witch hunting was a primarily Protestant past-time.
I did an entire study of this from purely FEMINIST academic sources (not phony conspiracy best-sellers) and even they had to admit that the whole “church-was-burning-millions-of-women-as-witches” was false.

I would give up trash like “The Dark Side of Christianity” and read the actual historical sources about the Inquisition and the Crusades. To me, the Crusades were like the D-Day landing to take France back. People tend to conveniently forget that the Christian lands were taken by conquest by the Muslims. As for the Inquisition, because it was run by REASON, people arrested by the STATE would sometimes blaspheme just to get their case transferred to the Inquisitorial courts!

Posted by pulchritudomusicae on Monday, May 31, 2010 2:56 AM (EDT):

Navy pilot, look at the historical context. You say, that Cardinal Bellarmine wrote that “discussing the Copernican system other than as a hypothesis was"a very dangerous thing, likely not only to irritate all scholastic philosophers and theologians, but also to harm the Holy Faith by rendering Holy Scripture false.”
There is no condemnation here. The faithful of that time were illiterate, but word of the Church and Scientists changing belief in how the world works would have thrown them (the faithful) out of their orbit. Especially with Protestant “sola scriptura” influence, thousands of Catholics would have left the Church thinking that the Church was going against the Bible and God… Cardinal Bellarmine is concerned for souls and the scandal this idea would cause if not handled quietly for a time would have been great.
I hope that you realize that Wikipedia is not a reliable or convincing source to quote (although in this case I don’t question it); however, I do have a more reliable source.
Warren Carroll has done comprehensive historical volumes on the Church. In the 4th volume, “The Cleaving of Christendom,” portions of which can be found at: http://books.google.com/books?ei=qz8DTOyIG4awNvv35Ts&ct=result&id=G5HYAAAAMAAJ&dq=warren+carroll&q=copernicus#search_anchor
I hope you are still following this blog. God bless.

Posted by str on Saturday, May 29, 2010 5:52 PM (EDT):

Josh,

you have obviously slept during the last 200 years and missed out on the World Wars, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot.

Posted by str on Saturday, May 29, 2010 5:44 PM (EDT):

Navy pilot,

“I disagree that the Church’s treatment of Galileo was in any way out of character (again, cf. St. Joan of Arc, the St. Bartholomew Day massacre, the Jews, 19th c. Mexico, etc. etc. etc.)”

Saint Joan was condemned by one church tribunal and burned by the English but she was also rehabilated shortly afterwards by another church court. According to your line of reasoning, every state that ever issued a wrong judgement (even if through a corrupt, self-serving judge) must be bashed as pure evil for all eternity.

If you want to talk about Saint Bartholomew’s massacre, why don’t you blame it on the actual murderers, the mob of Paris? Or even the royal government or the Duke of Guise (who though he only killed a single man that night might very well be behind the failed attempt that set the ball rolling).

Statements like “19th c. Mexico” and especially “the Jews” are much too general to be taken into serious consideration. Do you blame the church for by-and-large tolerating the existence of Jews in Europe?

The Church didn’t need John Paul to gain a balanced view on the Galileo affair. A re-trail was called for not by facts but by (as we now see unsucessfully) countering a legend.

And as often as it is repeated, it still isn’t true: Galileo’s view was not correct scientific fact.

Posted by str on Saturday, May 29, 2010 5:35 PM (EDT):

“Relatedly, do you really believe that the Church’s attitude towards science, or politics, or economics, or anything else, hasn’t deeply affected the societies which it has historically dominated?”

Sure it has!

And this is why societies “dominated” by the Church have invented universities and hospitals and actually brough forth modern natural science.

No matter whether Galileo was treated fairly or not, it did not hinder scientific research very much at the time.

Stop repeating a legend crated in the “dark age” (the 18th century).

Posted by str on Saturday, May 29, 2010 5:32 PM (EDT):

Various false statements have been made here:

1. Neither was there constant persecution of religious dissidents all over Europe, nor was Poland a place of “freedom of religion” in the modern sense. Poland opened its gates to Jews driven from other lands but that doesn’t mean that everyone was free to believe as he pleased.

2. There is no such thing as Copernicus’ “masterpiece” - his work, though ultimately being right on one point (which he took from an ancient author), was far from being solid scientific research. It wouldn’t pass a an undergrad paper today. Neither was Galileo all right in his claims (circular-shaped orbit, tides). That Cardinal Bellarmine pointed out bare scientific theory should not be held against him.

3. Reincarnation? There is no problem with reincarnation as it simply occurs neither in the Bible nor in tradition. Being “born again of water and the holy spirit” has always been understood the way it is today, as regenerative baptism. And reincarnation really makes no sense in the context of Jesus’ “Unless ... you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven” statement.

Posted by Joseph on Saturday, May 29, 2010 2:47 PM (EDT):

The next problem the Catholic Church has to solve is that of re-incarnation.

Even though Jesus said: “Unless you are born again, you will not go into the Kingdom of Heaven!”, it has been explained as Spiritual Rebirth.
What should I do? Denying that I was given re-calls of at least nine lives?

Posted by Dan Berger on Saturday, May 29, 2010 12:55 PM (EDT):

Mark, I recommend to you Owen Gingerich’s study of Copernicus’ work, “The Book Nobody Read.” His starting point was his mentors in astronomical history, telling him that nobody had actually read De Revolutionibus (sp?). So Gingerich undertook to examine as many early edition copies as he could, looking for marginalia. It’s a fascinating study of astronomical thought at the time.

Gingerich also carefully explains that astronomy at the time was not a branch of science, but of mathematics, and models had value insofar as they “saved the appearances,” that is, were able to elegantly predict what one observed. “Truth” of an astronomical model had to do with elegance and conformity to observation, not with whether it represented what we moderns would call the true state of affairs.

(The major problem with Ptolemaic astronomy was inelegance, not that it was “false.” It saved the appearances, but had to use several inelegantly ad hoc constructions to do so.)

Posted by Mai on Saturday, May 29, 2010 12:31 AM (EDT):

may be Mr. Josh would like to consult with this statistic before making such broad assumption:

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE5.HTM

particularly:

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/DBG.TAB3.1.GIF

Posted by Josh on Friday, May 28, 2010 5:52 PM (EDT):

You are ignorant if you believe that the Catholic Church has not murdered millions of innocent people in their long history of instilling fear amongst us. Let’s face it most religions are based on fear. Let us remember the Inquisition, the Crusades, and of course witch hunting. The Catholic Church is single handedly responsible for more killing more people than any war our Earth has ever seen.

I suggest reading The Dark Side of Christianity.

Posted by Franciscan on Friday, May 28, 2010 4:26 PM (EDT):

Navy Pilot,

Perhaps more convincing (and edifying) to exhibit supposedly superior charity, restraint, wisdom and humility by silence than by denigration and questionable promises to “pray” for the other?

Posted by R. WOLF on Friday, May 28, 2010 4:25 PM (EDT):

Above, it was written: “The Theory of Relativity seems to explain much of the universe, but the scientific community has yet to call it anything other than a theory.”

Well, like the theory of evolution or quantum theory, relativity theory carries the same term designation. We could, for example, point out that the *theory* [as the term is used in the sciences] of relativity devastated two Japanese cities. Frankly, those two “big holes in the ground at point zero” seem real enough – factual enough - to get my attention, whatever one calls them.

My understanding is that the word “theory” carries a different sense when used within the humanities than in the sciences. I cannot recall any recent scientific “theory” being declared a “law”, as in [Sir Isaac] Newton’s universal law of gravitation.

While pursuing my interdisciplinary humanities degree at Florida State University (1976-87), Dr. Paul A. M. DIRAC once told me during a conference that humanists [people in my field] use terms differently than do physicists. Here he was referring to the phenomenon of the sudden appearance of matter from “nothing”.

Now, “nothing” as used in physics is not the same as the word “nothing” used in, say, theology – God created the world from nothing [ex nihilo]. No. As used by physicists, Dr. Dirac explained, the nothing is rather a kind of no-thing-ness, a kind of sub-field of energy, but NOT the theologian’s “nothing”.

I hope I did not distort his intended meaning here in any way. You know, he won the 1934 Nobel Prize [for calculating and predicting the existence of the “positron”], and at Cambridge University, he occupied the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics in the Cavendish Laboratory [physics department]. The Lucasian Professorship of Mathematics is the most famous academic chair in the world, and was once occupied by Newton. Today, I believe I’m correct here, that chair honors Professor Steven Hawking.

—RW.

/\/\/\

Posted by Breidenc on Friday, May 28, 2010 2:17 AM (EDT):

Okay, so let me see if I get this straight. From Wikipedia, the MOST noteworthy source, we learn: “Carmelite father Antonio Paulo Foscarini, who, prior to Galileo, wrote a book in which he presented the Copernican system as true fact. He received a letter from Cardinal Bellarmine, who warned him that discussing the Copernican system other than as a hypothesis was, ‘a very dangerous thing, likely not only to irritate all scholastic philosophers and theologians, but also to harm the Holy Faith by rendering Holy Scripture false.’”
And yet we read, “While I totally respect the intellect of Robert Bellarmine and agree that he was one of the great theologians of his age and ours, what on earth was he doing trying to control scientific inquiry?”
I fail to see how this is “controlling scientific inquiry”? In the very quote, Bellarmine indicates that teaching/discussing it is tolerated! The issue comes down to presenting the system as “true fact”. Clearly, it hasn’t been until the modern age that we even have the instruments capable of confirming the heliocentric system as even remotely a “true fact”. Moreover, this particular hesitation is consistent with how scientific inquiry currently works. It doesn’t proclaim bold, new findings as truth, but rather allows for peer-review over the course of years, replicating the same tests and hypotheses. And only after it has withstood rigorous testing and confirmation, is it ever hesitantly declared a “law”. The Theory of Relativity seems to explain much of the universe, but the scientific community has yet to call it anything other than a theory.
Clearly, the quoted party either cannot read or is insufficiently knowledgeable about the scientific inquiry process; I will presume the latter.
Galileo…oh the silly man who tried to be a theologian, instead of a scientist; who failed to participate in the actual process of scientific inquiry, and decided to declare himself scientific lawgiver, instead of being astronomical science’s leading collaborator for his peers.

Posted by TeaPot562 on Friday, May 28, 2010 2:06 AM (EDT):

@former Navy pilot:
St Joan of Arc was captured by the Burgundians (at the time allied with the Angevin dynasty controlling England) and sold to the English. The English badly wanted her out of the way, as an obstacle to conquering France. Joan’s “trial for heresy” was merely an excuse.
Consider Cardinal Richelieu. He was a much better Frenchman than Catholic. Proof: Richelieu shipped five tubfuls of gold to the Lutheran king of Sweden, to finance an attack on the then Catholic emperor of Austria. Austria at the time was opposed to France.
Please do not confuse actions of political states with persecution by the Catholic Church.
BTW, the confusions above are an excellent reason for being grateful that the unification of Italy removed any identification of the Pope as a putative ruler of a large geographic area. Most popes weren’t really any good at it anyway.
TeaPot562

Posted by former Navy pilot on Friday, May 28, 2010 1:19 AM (EDT):

Oh Mark, Mark, Mark, I see that you want to misunderstand my argument. No point in pursuing further discussion with you. You can write me off as just another “troll.” I’ll pray for you. God bless.

Posted by Mark Shea on Friday, May 28, 2010 12:14 AM (EDT):

Okay, so now we are moving from the Church Hates Science Just Look at Copernicus narrative to the List Everything Catholics Have Ever Done Wrong narrative. Looking at actual facts about Copernicus is lack of humility. Delivering the umpteenth biased pounding on the Church is courage. Changing the subject to avoid sticking to the thread is intellectual integrity. Acknowledging that the Church maltreated Galileo is “triumphalism” if one refuses to subscribe to the Church Hates Science narrative without qualification. And, of course, regurgitating centuries old faults of people long dead while ignoring slipshod journalism and the recirculation of pseudoknowledge by living journalists is realism.

FYI, I wasn’t discussing Galileo. I was discussing Copernicus.

Posted by former Navy pilot on Friday, May 28, 2010 12:04 AM (EDT):

Mark,
BTW, I enjoy a triumphalist view of history on occasion, but usually humility first and foremost is the better, and I’d dare say, truer, approach. If ever there was a need for humility by loyal sons of the Church, it is in discussing Galileo (next, of course, to St. Joan of Arc). God bless!

Posted by former Navy pilot on Thursday, May 27, 2010 11:58 PM (EDT):

I disagree that the Church’s treatment of Galileo was in any way out of character (again, cf. St. Joan of Arc, the St. Bartholomew Day massacre, the Jews, 19th c. Mexico, etc. etc. etc.) My larger point is that the Church does not “know” the limits of its magisterium, rather, it is consistent with God’s will that it make, on occasion, disastrous mistakes. These mistakes are not without lasting value, so long as the Church, in its humility, learns from them. I’d say JPII showed us the way on this.
Again, I’ll point out that it is Galileo’s view on the proper role of the Church vis a vis science that currently prevails, not that of the theologians arrayed against him. Galileo intuited the truth; the Church learned it by the scalding it rightfully received as a result of this “episode.”

Posted by Mark Shea on Thursday, May 27, 2010 11:27 PM (EDT):

And again I ask, what do you mean “science in general”? One guy, a friend of Galileo’s, who get swept up in the same controversy, does not constitute a general Mistreatment of Science. You are perpetuating a myth. Nobody’s saying the Church was faultless with Galileo. What I’m saying is that the Galileo episode is highly unusual.

Posted by former Navy pilot on Thursday, May 27, 2010 11:26 PM (EDT):

Mark, any guesses as to who wrote this:
“An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie, for an excuse is a lie guarded.”

There can be no excuse for what the Church did to Galileo, even if he was the only scientist ever mistreated, and even if he only had to live out his old age under house arrest and wasn’t like, you know, burned or anything. Minimize it as you will, it is an historic scandal of the first order. If JPII can acknowledge that, why can’t you?
Relatedly, do you really believe that the Church’s attitude towards science, or politics, or economics, or anything else, hasn’t deeply affected the societies which it has historically dominated? There is a reason that the United States is the great (wealthy, educated, free, innovative, etc.) county that it is, and it has a lot to do with its historic Protestant culture. (Humility allows someone to give credit where credit is due.)
With that culture now dying, the Church needs to ingraft what’s true from it onto itself and carry it forward for the next generations. Otherwise this flowering of a noble, liberal and yes, Christian culture will be seen as just a cultural dead-end. I don’t think that’s consistent with God’s will, do you?

Posted by DN on Thursday, May 27, 2010 11:21 PM (EDT):

Navy pilot, that doesn’t square with the long tradition of scientist priests/clerics. I’m not by any means saying there wasn’t opposition to certain ideas at certain times, but it has to be read in each instance’s own context. Broad generalizations about ‘the papacy’ and ‘the scientists’, etc., will never work out, and everyone will be left trading anecdotes.

Posted by former Navy pilot on Thursday, May 27, 2010 10:56 PM (EDT):

Whoops, by bad: that’s Paolo Antonio FOSCARINI.

My further point on Church persecution in general (which you seem willing to minimize for whatever reason) is that even when judging on spiritual matters, well within the competency of the Church, it on occasion gets it wrong. For that, I refer you to the case of St. Joan of Arc. ‘Nuff said.

Posted by former Navy pilot on Thursday, May 27, 2010 10:52 PM (EDT):

Mark, I’ll start with one: Carmelite father Antonio Paulo Fosacrini, who, prior to Galileo, wrote a book in which he presented the Copernican system as true fact. He received a letter from Cardinal Bellarmine, who warned him that discussing the Copernican system other than as a hypothesis was"a very dangerous thing, likely not only to irritate all scholastic philosophers and theologians, but also to harm the Holy Faith by rendering Holy Scripture false.” (This comes from Wikipedia entry on the Galileo Affair).
While I totally respect the intellect of Robert Bellarmine and agree that he was one of the great theologians of his age and ours, what on earth was he doing trying to control scientific inquiry? He had absolutely no competence in that field, and everyone, including you, has to agree that this was wrong. Hence, JPII’s apology, which goes beyond merely Galileo’s individual mistreatment by the Church. In retrospect, a heliocentric system in no way renders Holy Scripture false, in spite of Bellarmine’s worries to the contrary.
My point is as expressed above, that clerics, as all men, need to walk humbly when attempting to judge affairs outside their field of competence. The Church only learned to treat science, and scientists, with respect, when it became indisputable that science was correct, and the theologians, incorrect. This is rightfully seen as a black eye for the Church, and one that merits a great deal of humility in discussing this topic from the Church angle.

Posted by Mark Shea on Thursday, May 27, 2010 9:33 PM (EDT):

What meanest thou “science in general”? Aside from Galileo, can you name two other scientists persecuted by the Church? The reason Galileo is memorable is not because he was an archetype, but because he was an exception.

Posted by former Navy pilot on Thursday, May 27, 2010 9:09 PM (EDT):

Yes, the facts are not as hellish as AP and other journos make them out to be. But it’s still hard to avoid the conclusion that the Church handled the Galileo case badly, and indirectly, needlessly defamed Copernicus. Why did the Church believe it had any business requiring “corrections” to Copernicus’ masterpiece? Those “corrections” are now universally seen as misguided.
JPII knew what he was about when he apologized on behalf of the Church for the mistreatment of Galileo in particular, and science in general. Galileo’s view of the proper reach of the Church’s jurisdiction is what prevails, not those who were charged with exercising that jurisdiction at the time.
The Church’s magisterium is not all-inclusive, and unfortunately history is replete with examples of haughty clerics who stern-facedly refused to acknowledge that. More humility in the institutional Church is needed, now as always . . .

Posted by Mary Irving on Thursday, May 27, 2010 6:17 PM (EDT):

Good work, Mark! I admire your patience with the “troll.” I love the comment: “Fair enough. When you are shown to not have the slightest idea what you are talking about it’s best to play to your strengths.”

Mary Irving

Posted by Mary Irving on Thursday, May 27, 2010 6:15 PM (EDT):

Good work, Mark! I admire you patience and good humor with the troll. I love your comment: “Fair enough. When you are shown to not have the slightest idea what you are talking about it’s best to play to your strengths.”

Mary Irving

Posted by Greg on Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:49 PM (EDT):

One correction: there are priest canons and secular canons. Copernicus was a secular canon (kanonik), not a priest. It was basically a cozy job for sons of well-heeled families, which granted prestige and spare time, without the burden of ecclesiastical duties. The position was attached to a specific cathedral, in this case Frombork.

Although Copernicus was a canon, he had never become a priest. In fact on 4 February 1531 his bishop threatened to take away his income if he did not enter the priesthood, yet Copernicus still refused.

Posted by Tapestry6 on Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:39 PM (EDT):

Atheists have their code but it all revolves around fiction.
They believe they are gods in their own personal universe, the Church is evil and against science that history proves this; then they dredge up Galileo, the Inquisition and the Crusades:::yawns:::, that whine the Church moral codes are archaic, that freedom is not the 10 commandments its condoms and the pill, killing animals is horribly wrong but babies are okay to flush, and that hate crimes never extend to the Catholics they got it all coming etc, etc, etc,ad nauseum.
It must be hard to live in that narrow universe you never can enjoy life!

Posted by Mark Shea on Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:19 PM (EDT):

Wayne:

You are stunningly impervious to fact. That’s what makes it hard for you to follow my train of thought. You have a narrative and you are sticking to it no matter what the historical record actually says.

Posted by wayne on Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:54 PM (EDT):

Hi Mark, you really get around.Its hard to follow your train of thought. Yes, the catholic church wanted Copenicus head on a platter.No debating that.The only reason the pope didnt burn Gallieo is cause they were childhood friends.So the pope just put him in house arrest. Boy, im sure glad the vatican doesnt rule the world anymore. Cause id be toast

Posted by Margaret on Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:12 PM (EDT):

I remember dealing with this issue in school. The point that I brought up then was that Poland was the only place that had true religous freedom. When they were killing you throughout europe because you weren’t the state regulated faith, Poland had freedom of religion which is one of the reasons they had such a high Jewish population. Poland never followed the “norms” of the rest of europe which is also a reason that the country was always belittled. These points and others helped me back then to come to the point of why Copernicus wasn’t persecuted. People do not fully comprehend how different Poland was from the rest of europe back then.

Fiction often carries more weight than truth. An example in our era concerns Pope Pius XII during the Second World War.

On his death in 1958, the common media lauded the Pope as a great person. Canada’s national newspaper, The Globe and Mail, eulogized, “He will be remembered as the Pope of Peace.” The Toronto Daily Star said in an editorial, “Through 19 years of holocaust and aftermath of revolutionary change and social ferment, he championed his Church as the rock which never changed.”

Just five years later, The Deputy, by playwright Rolf Hochhuth portrayed Pius as having done nothing to save Jews from the Nazis. The same media that once praised the Pope now propagated this fiction. In many quarters today, it is still accepted as truth, despite mounting evidence to the contrary.

Fiction is difficult to dislodge. Witness media propaganda about Galileo and Copernicus. The moral of the story: Beware the common media.

Posted by bt on Thursday, May 27, 2010 2:19 PM (EDT):

So what exactly is a Church canon?

Posted by Don on Thursday, May 27, 2010 1:17 PM (EDT):

“When he died, his ideas were just starting to be discussed by a small group of European astronomers, astrologers and mathematicians, and the church was not yet forcefully condemning the heliocentric world view as heresy,...” This statement from the AP article is also, I believe incorrect, as the Church condemned the idea that the heliocentric view was the complete truth and could be proved beyond a doubt. That is not the same as declaring that the heliocentric theory is heresy. There is also an element of a lack of historical understanding of the society of the early Renaissance on the part of many commentators who are quick to condemn the actions of certain Church leaders with respect to scientists. 500+ years ago European society was a much different place than it was 200 years ago.

Posted by Peregrinus on Thursday, May 27, 2010 12:53 PM (EDT):

The Galileo myth, to which this Copernicus matter is directly related, endures, despite the efforts of you and a number of others to reveal the truth, because, as Dr. William Carroll has observed, the myth has become an essential part of the modernist world view. That is to say, the modernist understanding of the Catholic Church and its relationship with science depends, in great part, upon a mis-understanding of the Galileo affair. Modernists will not, therefore, easily accept the truth in this matter, since doing so would require them to modify their current view.

Posted by Steve on Thursday, May 27, 2010 11:53 AM (EDT):

As Mikołaj Kopernik would say, bardzo dziękuję!

Posted by Peter Raposo on Thursday, May 27, 2010 11:12 AM (EDT):

Hey Kudos! thats refreshing indeed!

Posted by Greg on Thursday, May 27, 2010 10:11 AM (EDT):

Thanks for this enlightening view! I just finished an Astronomy 101 course at my local community college and this is certainly NOT what I heard. I trusted in faith that the Church had acted properly and my professor was mis-informed but it’s nice to read Actual-Historical-Ya-Know-Facts.

Thank you!

Posted by Rachel on Thursday, May 27, 2010 9:58 AM (EDT):

Ahhh….the pleasure of reading the truth, a breath of fresh air in an electronic world where many believe the world revolves around their laptop.

Will the trolls come out their dark holes to see the light? Unlikely, but for me I am basking in the light of both the universe as created by God and sun outside my window. We have never shied away from science or even our own history, we just insist they are both presented correctly.

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About Mark Shea

Mark P. Shea is a popular Catholic writer and speaker. The author of numerous books, his most recent work is The Work of Mercy (Servant) and The Heart of Catholic Prayer (Our Sunday Visitor). Mark contributes numerous articles to many magazines, including his popular column “Connecting the Dots” for the National Catholic Register. Mark is known nationally for his one minute “Words of Encouragement” on Catholic radio. He also maintains the Catholic and Enjoying It blog. He lives in Washington state with his wife, Janet, and their four sons.